Aliso Viejo delays vote on Green City Initiative

Following outcry from some members of the business community, the Aliso Viejo City Council postponed a vote on the city's green initiative, a project aimed at promoting water and energy conservation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Though the city has stressed the project is voluntary, many business owners said they don't believe it. Business leaders voiced concerns that what they heard in stakeholder meetings with the city didn't translate to what they heard on the council dais.

“We expected to see several changes made to the Green City Initiative (GCI) which we do not find,” said Len Herman, president of the Orange County Association of Realtors, in a letter addressed to council. “The GCI continues to go against its often-stated voluntary only implementation measures by suggesting adoption of standards in certain categories. Standards, by definition, are not voluntary. And neither are the proposed financial incentives which, if paid for by municipal finances, essentially impose mandatory, not voluntary, costs on non-participant taxpayers in Aliso Viejo.”

NAIOP SoCal, a Costa Mesa-based commercial real estate development group, also came out in opposition to the Green City Initiative as it appeared on the agenda.

The group “had an expectation that there would be changes made that have not been made,” said Vickie Talley, director of legislative affairs for NAIOP SoCal in a letter to council. “Many of our concerns focus on the assurances that the recommendations in the document are all ‘voluntary,' which contradicts the wording in many of the various ‘implementation measures.' ”

City staff has been developing the Green City Initiative since 2010 and have held public workshops as well as business stakeholder meetings. Members of the business community have repeatedly stressed trepidation that many measures of the initiative – such as suggesting using green materials or having buildings LEED certified – while currently voluntary, will become mandatory.

Mike Balsamo, chief executive officer of the BIA of Orange County, was one person who expressed concern to the council and has previously voiced reservations over some of the items in the initiative.

“Our perception is that a lot of sustainable building initiatives are already happening organically through market preferences. If you mandate it, enforce it, it increases the cost of construction, generally speaking. That has an effect on housing affordability. We prefer the voluntary nature of the program,” Balsamo said in an earlier interview.

Both business groups request the item be continued, something the council voted to do 4-0, with Councilman Phil Tsunoda not present for the vote.

Staff reports showed the initiative is supposed to generate several results, such as adhering to state requirements to reduce and plan for greenhouse gas emissions, encouraging conservation among the public, attracting businesses and residents interested in sustainability, bolstering city facilities with green technologies and equipment and creating programs like a community garden at the Aliso Viejo Ranch.

The initiative project began in 2010 and has been the subject of 12 public workshops, 23 drafts of the now 123-page report and more than $400,000 in expenses for consulting groups to measure how and where the city might improve its green efforts and how homeowners, developers and business owners could do the same.

Businesses like local Aliso Viejo Café City Perk, as well as many residents, voiced support for the measure, however.

Some, like Sandra Leone, even voiced disappointment over the initiative's final shape.

“I AM sorely disappointed that the business community has had a hand in preventing any mandatory measures,” Leone said in a letter to council. “The very fact that many of these businesses called for the measures to be voluntary indicates an unwillingness to participate. Therefore at the very least I would love to see an incentive program.”

City Manager Mark Pulone told council that when council revisits the issue on March 20, staff will have prepared a “matrix” that shows where all the initiative items come from.

“The draft plan will be coming back to the council in the current form. We don't anticipate any changes in regards to that,” Pulone said. “We will be bringing back, though, a matrix that identifies by initiatives spelled out in the Green City Initiative what the underlying relationship is to either state law or some of the voluntary measures that came out of the workshops.”

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